1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an itinerary making system, and particularly to an itinerary making system for making an itinerary according to which a traveler can conveniently arrive at desired sites which are input by the traveler.
2. Description of the Related Art
Navigation systems have become popular in recent years. Navigation systems can show on its map information the present position, a destination, and a recommended travelling route from the present position to the destination. Also, necessary information can be acquired by accessing a database through an in-car terminal or a transportable terminal. There have been proposed communications systems which can receive an optimum travelling route for a vehicle with traffic jam information taken into account and also guide information on recreation facilities and restaurants.
For example, the navigation system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 5-313583 provides the shortest route to efficiently visit a plurality of destinations, the addresses of which are entered by a traveler (a package deliveryman).
Further, a proposal has been made for an itinerary making system which is used together with the above-described navigation system to make an itinerary including a desired destination before setting out on a journey. This itinerary making system can calculate a required time to reach the destination through a recommended route in view of a traveling distance to reach the destination and traffic history information on the recommended route, incorporate a travel time schedule into the itinerary, and update the itinerary in correspondence with the actual traveling.
However, since the itinerary making system which is used together with the conventional navigation system shows the shortest route to efficiently arrive at the input destinations, it has a disadvantage that a traveler cannot timely arrive at the prescribed destinations as he or she desires. For example, assume that a traveler, who wants to play in an amusement park and to see the sun setting over the sea, inputs XX Amusement Park and YY Beach Observation Platform as destinations (visiting facilities). In this case, an itinerary might be made to visit the observation platform in the morning or to go to the amusement park after its closing time depending on the positional relationship between the amusement park and the observation platform. This itinerary is meaningless.
To remedy such a disadvantage, desired visiting times may also be entered when the facilities to be visited are entered. However, the input of the visiting time for respective facilities makes the input operation troublesome, and appropriate visiting times may not be entered easily. For example, the opening time of some facilities may be different depending on the day of the week or a season, and the time when the sun sets over the sea is different depending on the time and date or place. Therefore, various kinds of information are required to designate the appropriate visiting time. As a result, the optimum time cannot be acquired easily and the itinerary cannot be made efficiently.